Manafort (ALLEGEDLY) claims that he met with Ecuador officials to discuss Chinese investments in Ecuador, but the Logan Act forbids private citizens from conducting foreign policy. So it could be ANOTHER felony?

In addition to the Manafort news, Roger Stone and his associate and noted Birther-QAnon scholar Jerome Corsi are also making news.

On August 2, 2016, just days after Stone instructed Corsi to get intel on upcoming email dumps from Wikileaks editor Julian Assange, Corsi emailed Stone:

“Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps…. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

Corsi has since withdrawn from plea negotiations, which seems like a really stupid thing to do when Mr. Mueller already knows what crimes you’ve committed!

Anyway, this leads all the pundits to believe that somehow Corsi and Manafort feel certain that they have a Pardon with their names on them, coming from Comrade Trump.

In related news, The NYTimes says that a lawyer for Manafort repeatedly briefed Trump’s lawyers on his client’s discussions with federal investigators. I’m sure it was perfectly innocent, just chit-chat, shooting the breeze.

And that’s the state of play so far! Phew!

UPDATE 1: I’ll take this bet and wager 1,000 Quatloos

Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper’s reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange. https://t.co/R2Qn6rLQjn

9 Responses to Today’s Little Kremlin-On-The-Potomac Update

The next thing we’ll hear from The Cult is that collusion by email isn’t collusion because it involves elections travelling through space and no one actually witnesses that happening. Also/too it’s not illegal for electrons to collude, and anyway Hillary acid-washed all her email electrons which is totally why SHE MUST BE LOCKED UP. It’s also not necessary that anyone try explaining to the stable genius what an electron is, just that he keep babbling NO COLLUSION!!!11!

In yesterday’s news-printed-on-paper-and-delivered-directly-to-my-doorstep thingy, there was an article buried deep on page B-6, about White House aides sensing a need for at least a dozen new lawyers, anticipating a slew of investigations come January, when the Ds take over the House.

Unfortunately they’re not having much luck – apparently when most of the prestigious law firms discover who’s calling, they all are claiming they’re far too busy, and are declining the Call From Above, for True Justice to be served. Or at least for a way out of the bramble patch they seem to find themselves mired in, and the Best Ways to Avoid Prison.

One never knows with simpletons like Trump, Manafort and Corsi, but I’ve an inkling of what’s been going through Mueller’s mind.

Since Mueller’s been privy to all the lies going back and forth between Manafort’s lawyers and his own team, and since he know what Corsi pled out to before he flinched, one suspects he just compared/contrasted all that crap with the president*’s hand-crafted written responses, n’est-ce pas?

What’s next?

Well, as the man said: “Now Mr. President*, them political whores are going to tell different lies than you. And when their lies ain’t the same as your lies— Well, I ain’t gonna hurt no yellow-bellied morons. But I’m gonna hurt you. And not gentle like before, but bad!

I suppose the betting among Manafort, Corsi and Stone is that they will all get indicted and convicted over the next couple of years (well, Manafort already has) but that, for reasons of political/legal jeopardy Trumpkins won’t pardon anyone connected to the 2016 campaign until, like, his last day or couple of days in office, in January 2021.

Of course, Trump will probably face multiple indictments for numerous state-level crimes as soon as the Democratic president is sworn in.